Anyone who has paid a boda rider or a shop attendant through M-Pesa knows the routine. You hand over the phone to show the confirmation message, and the other person reads your balance along with it.
Safaricom’s answer is Jumbe, a second SMS that arrives at the same time as the usual confirmation and proves the payment without showing your balance or personal details. The official name for the feature is Split Notifications.
Merchants switch it on, not customers
Customers do not need to register. If the business you are paying has activated the feature, the Jumbe message arrives automatically after the normal M-Pesa SMS. You can show that one instead.
The catch is that it depends entirely on the merchant. Only the main administrator of a business’s M-Pesa account can enable it for a till, either by dialling *234# or through the M-Pesa Business Hub, Techweez reported. Safaricom has said the M-Pesa Business App will support the feature later. If you pay and no Jumbe message comes, the till has probably not turned it on.
Safaricom published the frequently asked questions and merchant terms for the service in July. It has not said whether customers will eventually be able to turn the extra SMS off.
Why it matters
Balance exposure is more than an awkward moment. Fraudsters and pickpockets are known to look for people carrying large balances, and showing your phone in a busy matatu stage or market can make you a target.
Shops that adopt Jumbe also gain something. Staff can check the separate message quickly, and customers have one less reason to feel uneasy about paying by phone instead of cash.
The feature is one of several small changes Safaricom has made to M-Pesa this year. Under its Pata More campaign, Pochi la Biashara transactions up to Sh200 are free for the promotional period and Buy Goods Kadogo now covers payments up to Sh500. Customers who make at least two reversals in a month are asked to confirm some transactions twice under a feature called Double Hakikisha.
For now, the simplest way to keep your balance private is to ask the merchant if their till has Jumbe enabled.
Sources: Techweez | Safaricom FAQ
Photo: Realt0n12 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
